Druid
:For a description of the role of druids within the lore of Warcraft, see Druid lore. For related articles, see Category:Druids. The '''Druid' is a class that combines the essence of four classes: priests, warriors, rogues, and (to a lesser extent) mages into one class. Unlike hybrid classes, most of a Druid's abilities are locked within their various forms, which they take advantage of through shape-shifting. A Druid can perform any of four roles in a group but depending on how a Druid has spent his/her Talent Points, and what gear they are equipped with when entering combat, they will be more confined to one or two roles at any given time. Overview The core build of a Druid consists of three single-target mage-like damage spells, one multiple-target mage-like spell, four single-target priest-like healing spells, one multiple-target healing spell, a Cat Form containing basic damaging special moves similar to a rogue, a Bear Form capable of giving a Druid armor and health that competes with the Warrior class in plate armor, poison and curse cleansing spells, and a range of other spells and forms usable outdoors/underwater or on beasts and dragonkin. *'Balance' Druids specialize in their assortment of damage spells and special abilities including an additional Moonkin Form. The enhancements to their balance spells in combination to their Moonkin Form gives them a unique flavor akin to that of an arcane warrior and come from specializing in the Balance talent tree. *'Feral' Druids specialize in their Feral Forms to perform multiple melee roles, each form has its own wide array of abilities and is further enhanced by talents spent in the Feral talent tree. **By using Bear Form the druid can serve as a tank using rage similar to a warrior, allowing him to gain and hold aggro from multiple mobs, mitigate damage, stun opponents, strike multiple opponents, etc. **While in Cat Form the druid, using energy, can do large amounts of melee DPS second only to a rogue, and also allowing him stealth, several surprise attacks, Damage over Time (DoT) attacks, and powerful finishing moves. *'Restoration' Druids specialize in their assortment of healing spells and special abilities including an additional Tree of Life Form. They are considered the second-most powerful healers in the game, however although Rebirth, the Druid resurrection spell, has the unique characteristic of allowing in-combat resurrection, it is considerably more limited in other respects than the resurrection abilities of the Priest, Paladin and Shaman. A Druid can play the part of any of the four primary party roles: tank, healer, melee-DPS and ranged-DPS. In any of these roles a properly specced Druid can fulfill the task almost as well and in some cases better (depending upon the player) than a member of the primary class themselves, and can moreover switch these roles as needed, offering tremendous adaptability and flexibility, which is the true hallmark of this class. The Druid is a difficult; indeed perhaps the most challenging class to master, but no other class is as versatile as the Druid. Because of this versatility, plus unique spells and abilities ( ex: Innervate and combat resurrection and one of the best buffs in the game (Mark of the Wild and later Gift of the Wild)) Druids should be welcome in any group. Druids are quite an uncommon class. The rarity of Druids can be partially traced to several factors. As previously noted, the Druid is an extremely difficult class to master. Given the relatively low density of Druids in the WoW population, it logically follows then that there are fewer examples existent of a well played Druid for other players to have experience of and emulate. Because of their ability to play multiple roles, Druids tend to require several complete sets of gear. This can be a very difficult time-, space-, skill-, and resource-consuming activity. Unlike most, if not all of the other classes, a Druid does not begin with some skill, spell, or ability in most every area they will one day be proficient in, they acquire utterly new branches of ability when they advance to certain specific levels, and is therefore a class which truly blooms at an advanced age. This can make the early game for the Druid difficult and frustrating. However, once mastered, the Druid is a formidable class with much to contribute and can be extremely rewarding and enjoyable to play. Another nice feature about playing druids is their ability to travel faster: *Through a quest at level 16, druids gain their aquatic form allowing them to travel at normal speed under water and also allowing them to breathe underwater, all other classes depend on potions or spells to be able to do this. *At level 21, through the use of two talent points into Feral Swiftness, the cat form is 30% faster than normal running speed, and this can be boosted to 50%, 60%, or 70% (level 26, 46, and 65, respectively) for 15 seconds using the dash ability. *At level 30 the travel form is gained. All this much before the other classes get access to a mount that allows them to move faster, travel form is 40% faster than normal running speed. *Druids also gain the ability to fly (Flight Form) in Outland 2 levels before the other classes do through their flight form ability. This will also save you over 540 gold in savings over training for a normal flying mount. In addition, unlike any other flying mount, the Druid Flight Form is an Instant Cast spell, allowing the Druid to avoid falling damage (if not in combat) by shifting to flight before hitting the ground. Introduced in patch 2.1, druids now have Swift Flight Form which is a faster version of the normal form. As such, druids are masters of escaping to fight another day in the case that battles take a turn for the worse. This also makes them very desirable for running a flag in PVP events. Races The Druid class can be played by the following races: * Night Elves * Tauren Weapons & Armor Druid]] Armor Druids are able to wear Cloth and Leather armor only. See Druid Sets for a list of druid armor sets. Weapons Druids can learn to fight with: *Staff *One-handed Mace *Two-handed Mace *Dagger *Fist weapon *Also see : Druid weapons Depending on race, druids have different starting weapons: * Night elf druids start out being able to use staves and daggers; * Tauren druids start out with staves and one-handed maces. Both races can later pay a trainer to teach them how to use fist weapons, both kinds of maces and daggers. *Druids can never use shields. This is most likely because of the Druid class's bear form; the Dire Bear form in particular increases armor by 400%. With a 2000AC shield, for example, this would mean 11000AC from a shield (12080 with max thick hide). The armor bonus is intended to make up for the lack of block and parry. *Druids can never learn how to dual wield. This means you can only use a weapon in your main hand (e.g. If you pay to learn fist-weapons, you can use right-handed brass knuckles, but not left-handed (off-hand) brass knuckles.). "Held in off-hand" items can still be used if the Druid uses a one-handed weapon. Abilities Through the use of various abilities and spells, the Druid can perform several roles in any group, including healing, nuking, tanking, and melee DPS. Forms The Druid's most notable ability is shapeshifting into different forms. Bear Form, Aquatic Form, and Swift Flight Form are obtained by doing Druid Quests. The other forms are purchased from a class trainer. For a full list of Druid Feral Form abilities see Druid Abilities. The act of shapeshifting into or out of any form removes most movement slowing or preventing effects. It will also dispel Polymorph. While shapeshifted into Bear, Aquatic, Cat, Travel, Flight, or Dire Bear form: *The Druid cannot be polymorphed. *The Druid is considered a beast. Spells and abilities which can only be used on humanoids will not work against a shapeshifted druid and spells and abilities which work on beasts (such as Hibernate and Scare Beast) will work on them. *The Druid may only use equipped items with "Use:" such as trinkets. Bag items cannot be used (potions, and other consumables). In Bear, Dire Bear and Cat form, the following are also true: *Mana regeneration still continues but at a slightly reduced rate. This will often leave you with a refilled mana bar after you spend some time in your melee forms. Mana-reducing abilities such as Viper Sting and Mana Burn will not affect you while in forms. *Items with a "Chance on hit" portion and "Chance on hit" enchants such as Enchant Weapon - Crusader and Enchant Weapon - Lifestealing will not activate. However "Chance on hit" effects built into armour will proc such as the Green Whelp Armor. *Weapon DPS and weapon +damage enchants are not used. The weapon damage bonus from the Might of Cenarius ring does work, however. *Items with an "Equip:" do work in forms, such as the Naglering's 3 points of arcane damage when hit and the Darkmoon cards that proc on melee damage, Darkmoon Card: Heroism and Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom. *Your weapon skill with your equipped weapon has no effect on your melee forms. Cat and Bear shapes are considered to have the maximum skill allowed by your level with their natural weapons. In Moonkin and Tree of Life form the following are true: *Like the others, Moonkin and Tree of Life forms make the druid immune to Polymorph, and shifting in and out of them will remove moving de-buffs. *Moonkin Unlike the others, is not considered a beast, therefore, it is immune to any beast crowd control, such as Hibernate. *Moonkin Form is considered a Humanoid, and while it is immune to Polymorph and similar spells, it will be affected by other spells that can affect Humanoids such as Sap *Tree of Life is not considered a beast, therefore, it is also immune to beast dependent spells. *Tree of Life is considered an Elemental, and no Humanoid dependent spells will affect it. It is however, vulnerable to Elemental dependent spells, such as Banish. *Weapon procs and enchants will proc under any of these two forms. There is also a Druid Quests page with an outline for the level 10 (Bear), level 16 (Aquatic), and level 70 (Swift Flight) quests. The druid has the unique ability to shapeshift into various forms. These forms can be used to improve combat or to increase travel speed. Spells In addition to healing spells, Druids also have excellent buffs in the game. They also have some limited damage spells, making them (if properly geared and with proper talent point allocation) just as powerful, however being less versatile than Mage or Warlock spells for example. See the Druid abilities page for further details. Talents Druid Talents are split into three categories: * Balance - Focus on Damage Spells to make the druid an efficient caster DPSer. * Feral Combat - Focus on using the druid forms (Cat Form, Bear Form, Dire Bear Form) in the aspects of tanking (Bear/Dire Bear Form) and Damage dealing (Cat Form). * Restoration - Focus on Healing Spells to make the druid an efficient healer. Its important to note that the Druid talent trees are designed to alter all aspects of the druid. A few Feral Combat talents modify maximum mana (balance and healing). Also, some Balance talents modify cost of healing spells, as well as some helpful feral use talents. Finally, some Restoration talents modify mana regeneration during casting (balance), talents to give the druid rage/energy when he switches into either Cat or Bear Form and the coveted clearcasting effect. There are good talent calculators that can be found here: Official Blizzard site, WorldofWar.se, WoWhead, WoW Vault, ThottBot and Merciless. See the Druid Talents and Druid Talent Analysis pages for further details. End-Game Expectations Greatly improved non-healing itemization and talents in The Burning Crusade has increased end-game viability for druids of any talent specialization. Many guilds have accepted feral and balance druids as core raiders. The ability that balance druids have to bring both DPS and offhealing to a raid, and the ability of feral druids of being able to switch between tanking and melee DPS makes them very prized on raids, since these are switches that parent classes cannot do with ease. See Also *Druid Spells and Abilities *Druid Talent Analysis *Druid Tactics *Druids as Tank *Druid Quests *Starting a Druid *Alamo *Useful macros/Druid *Druid sets *Spell Damage Coefficients External links *Druid Leveling Guide - Helps new druids choose their talents at early levels. *Burning Crusade Druid Spell Preview *Druid Movement Speed Table Category:Druids